Nile

nil, a river of Africa. It is the largest river in Africa. It is one of the most noted rivers in the world. The ancients knew in a general way that the Nile came from equatorial Africa, but, further than this, the source was a mystery. The headwaters are now known to be collected by Victoria Nyanza. Nyanza is an African word meaning "lake." Lake Victoria, as it is sometimes called, is second only to Lake Superior in size, and lies at an altitude of about 4,000 feet above the sea. It was discovered by Speke in 1858 and was explored later by Grant and Stanley. It contains islands of considerable size and is navigated by steamboats. A railroad leads eastward to the coast of the Indian Ocean.

As the Nile issues from the northern shore of the lake it drops over a ledge of rocks about twelve feet in height. It is 400 to 500 feet in width and is divided by wooded islets into a number of channels. It races through a rocky pass northwestward toward Albert Nyanza. About twenty miles above the latter lake the Nile "rages furiously through a rock-bound pass and plunges at one leap of about 120 feet into a gloomy abyss." This cataract is known as Murchison Falls. Albert Nyanza is about as large as Great Salt Lake. It is practically an expansion of the Nile. From this lake the Nile continues northward. In places its course is smooth, and the river widens out into island-studded reaches. In other places it contracts, rushes through gorges, and shoots rapids. Again there are stretches of sluggish waters adorned with white, blue, and crimson water lilies and visited by a multitude of waterfowl. Reeds rivaling the bamboos of the East and the canebrakes of Kentucky rise like a wall to a height of twenty or thirty feet along the channel. Myriads of insects hover in the air. At Khartum the White Nile, as the main stream is called, receives the Blue Nile from the Abyssinian Mountains. During the next 500 miles it tumbles over several cataracts, then stretches away northward under ancient Karnak and Thebes, past the pyramids and Memphis, to Cairo and the Mediterranean Sea.

The total length of the Nile, windings included, is about 4,000 miles. The area of its basin is 1,082,000 square miles. It extends through thirty-five degrees of latitude. It is about 2,450 miles in a straight line from Victoria Nyanza to the delta of the Nile. The headwaters of the White Nile lie in a region of abundant and regular rains. The delta of the Nile has an annual rainfall of between one and two inches. Through the greater part of its course, however, the Nile runs through a region practically without rain. It loses so much water from evaporation that, at ordinary seasons of the year, it grows smaller as it advances northward. Once a year the Blue Nile brings down water from the melting snows of Abyssinia. The Nile begins to rise in June, reaches its greatest height in about three months, then subsides again. At the season of flood large areas are inundated and enriched with mud from the mountains of Abyssinia. In ordinary years the rise at Cairo is about twenty-five feet.

The fertility of Egypt is due entirely to the Nile. The ancients worshiped the river Nilus as a god. A temple was dedicated to him at Nileopolis, and festivals were held in his honor. In the art of the Greeks and Romans Nilus was represented as a river god reclining at ease and surrounded by sixteen children. The latter was supposed to be symbolical of the customary height in cubits to which the river rose at flood.

Although conferring unsurpassed fertility the favors of the Nile are by no means uniform. In some seasons there is insufficient water to reach outlying lands, and a part of the population of Egypt is brought to the verge of starvation. In other years the volume of water is so great that improvements are swept away and great loss is incurred. Efforts have been made for centuries to remedy the matter. Extensive canals have been dug. In time of sluggish water they are likely to fill up with silt. In time of flood they are apt to become raging torrents. A swift current eats away the banks, and fertile plains and villages are swept away.

In 1850-65 a dam or barrage, as it is called, was constructed across the Rosetta and the Damietta arms at the apex of the delta. This work may be described as a brick viaduct, consisting of 132 arches of sixteen feet four inches span. These archways were provided with gates which might be closed. This barrage is capable of raising the water fifteen feet, affording irrigation for the delta in time of need. This work was constructed by French engineers and cost about $2,500,000. A second barrage crosses the Nile at Assiout, about 250 miles above Cairo. It also cost $2,500,000.

The third great work was undertaken in 1898 at Assouan, ancient Syene, at the foot of the first cataract, 650 miles above Cairo. One of the greatest dams ever constructed has been built here. It is one and one-fourth miles in length. In crossing the river advantage is taken of four small islands. This dam is 130 feet in height. It contains 1,000,000 tons of masonry. The material was quarried in the immediate vicinity. It is the Syene stone used by the Egyptians for their obelisks and in the construction of many of their great works. The foundation of the dam is composed of huge blocks of this granite set in Portland cement. As high as 11,000 men, including 1,000 European mechanics, were employed. There are 180 sluices, from twelve to twenty-three feet high by six and one-half feet wide. They are closed by gates sliding on rollers. Navigation is provided for by a series of four locks. Seen from a height, the locks look like a huge ladder of masonry lying in the water near the western shore. When the sluices are closed, the water is raised to a height of seventy-five feet. Two hundred and fifty billion gallons of water are stored up for use in time of need. It is expected that the locks will bring large additional areas of land under cultivation and that the enormous expense of their construction, both principal and interest, will be met by rent collected for the use of fields not now in existence. Increased acreage and greater freedom from drouth and flood are expected to add $12,000,000 a year to the national wealth. The yield of the long, staple cotton for which Egypt is famous will be increased a fourth.

The upper Nile is obstructed by matted vegetable growth known locally as sudd. The chief growths in the sudd are papyrus and elephant grass, the latter a kind of bamboo that grows to a height of twenty feet. These are knit together by a creeping convolvulus or plant of the morning glory type. Other parts of the sudd are dominated by a long sword grass that cuts like a knife, known as "oom soof." Mr. Day Allen Willey writes in the Scientific American:

Just how the word "sudd" originated is a mystery, but every Egyptian traveler knows perhaps too well what it is, for many a time this vegetation has choked the upper Nile to such an extent that boats have been held weeks at a time until a way could be cut, burned, and pulled through it. So dense, so thick, is the water growth, that, if allowed to continue, it forms a literal mat over the channel, so compact and so strong that such animals as the elephant, even the hippopotamus, have been seen to go across it without breaking through the matted roots, branches, and leaves. In short, the rapidity with which the sudd spreads over the water, and its parts interlace, is such that in a few weeks a space of the Nile once clear of it will be completely hidden by a mass of waving papyrus, but underneath is a combination of water plants that attach themselves to the papyrus stalks, and form what is literally a cover of vegetation, through which not a foot of the river may be visible. . . . The growth along the upper Nile is so enormous that patches of it skirting the shore may be seen for distances of a hundred miles without a break or gap to the land itself. Islands of the stuff a half dozen miles in area are sometimes carried down in the Nile flood current until they lodge against a projection of the shore or ground in shallow water. Thus it is that new "islands" of it are created often far downstream from the region where the sudd is most abundant.

In all of the thousand and odd miles from Gondokoro to Khartoum, and even above Gondokoro, does this water growth flourish, and consequently the engineers of the Egyptian government have no small task to keep open a channel for the steamer service. Although but one boat monthly plies regularly between the places mentioned, there is considerable tourist and other traffic near Khartoum, and a fleet of craft are in service to remove this curious growth.

In clearing the river channel of sudd the engineers have devised several schemes. The top growth frequently becomes so dry that they can burn it over like so much grass. This removes much of the weight of the plants, but they are so matted together, that saws are actually used to separate the growth, as it cannot be removed in any other way. The vessels employed for sudd clearing, while light-draft boats, are strongly built and have blunt bows, so that they can be forced against the bank of vegetation. They are provided with steel cables or hawsers, saws, and axes, and carry crews of natives who are experts in working upon the sudd.

See Egypt; Irrigation; Delta; Cairo; Alexandria; Thebes; Pyramids; Crocodile; Hippopotamus; Temple; Architecture, etc.